Conrado Higuera Sol
Conrado Higuera "Don" Sol (1959-) was a Mexican lawyer and Institutional Revolutionary Party politician. He served as party secretary during the 1980s before becoming a member of the Mexican Congress from Mazatlan in 2000 to 2006 and Secretary of Public Security from 2007. Higuera Sol had dealings with crime bosses such as Joaquin Guzman Loera, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, and Amado Carrillo Fuentes, using his connections to crime to further his own ambitions of becoming President. He would also use these connections to serve as the nexus between the government and the cartels, doing the "dirty work" for several Mexican presidents by managing the drug cartels as they squabbled. Biography Conrado Higuera Sol worked as a lawyer before finding employment under the Institutional Revolutionary Party at the age of 26, and his career was on the rise due to his wise advice. In 1985, he advised PRI leader Adolfo Lugo Verduzco to strike back against the corrupt governor of Jalisco by tying him to the Guadalajara Cartel, a move that would force the governor to get back in line behind the PRI leadership. Higuera also found employment as an assistant to General Eugenio Blanco, and he worked with Blanco as he attempted to control the balance of power among the cartels. Sol decided to work with the drug cartels in order to gain enough influence to one day becom President; Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin Guzman Loera was both an ally and his worst enemy. In the end, he managed to secure Guzman Loera's arrest after naming him the most dangerous drug lord in Mexico, and he killed Blanco in self-defense after discovering his role in several rapes. In 2000, the new President, Vicente Fox, dismissed Higuera Sol as the man in charge of the anti-narcotics operations, but Higuera Sol charmed his wife Marta Sahagun into putting in a kind word for him. He correctly informed Fox that Ramon Arellano Felix had been killed before Fox even discovered from the police, earning Fox's trust. Rise in the ranks In 2002, Higuera was promoted to Operational Director of the Federal Police by President Fox, who was convinced to bring him back into law enforcement by his wife, Marta Sahagun. Higuera was appointed director just before the raid to capture Benjamin Arellano Felix was carried out, and he oversaw the operation's implementation on 9 March 2002. Arellano Felix's capture by the police without a gunshot made international news, as the Arellano Felix brothers were now eliminated. Now, he focused on taking down the newest opponent of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel. Higuera Sol gained the favor of President Felipe Calderon by assisting him in sabotaging PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's presidential campaign in 2004-2006, and Calderon rewarded him by making him Secretary of Public Security. In this post, Higuera Sol was able to be the go-between for El Chapo and the government; El Chapo's men received government weapons in exchange for fighting an increasingly costly war against the Gulf Cartel. The war would become unpopular among civilians due to a massive increase in homicide rates, including among innocent people. Return to the PRI In 2011, Sol decided to covertly communicate with PRI head and former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and help the PRI win the presidential election, seeing the election of PRI presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto as a means to increase his own power. He leaked the PAN party's plan to emphasize the corruption of Pena Nieto's uncle, allowing for Pena Nieto to rebut the accusations by arguing that the deputies who voted in favor of his uncle's bills, and not he (who allowed the deputies to make their own choices), should be held responsible, and that he was not his uncle. Pena Nieto, out of gratitude, promised Higuera Sol a cabinet position. Meanwhile, Sol continued to serve as a go-between for the Mexican government and the Sinaloa Cartel, pressuring El Chapo to end his plans to expand into Malaysia in exchange for less government pressure on his business. When El Chapo refused, the government arrested Vicente Zambada Niebla, Ismael Zambada Garcia's son. Sol later met with El Chapo and told him of his dealings with the PRI leadership, informing him that it was in both the PRI and El Chapo's best interests that the PAN-led government and its US allies did not capture him. El Chapo promised to keep away the Federales and the Army, but he warned El Chapo that the Mexican Navy would still go after him due to their collaboration with the DEA. Category:Mexican politicians Category:Mexicans Category:Politicians Category:Catholics Category:PRI members Category:PAN members Category:Mexican liberals Category:Liberals Category:LGBT people